When I was in 8th grade, I ended up separated from most of my elementary friends. I had one friend that I knew, and she had the same problem the previous year, and introduced me to some of her new friends. One was this boy who had a deformed arm. He opened my eyes to a whole new world of interests, musical tastes, style, anime, books (including one of my favorite authors to this day), and just generally made me look at life differently. We talked on the phone every night, to the point where my parents got me a second phone line because I was on the phone so much. He introduced me to his friends, one of which became my first boyfriend. And he was one of the first people I’d met that was as smart as me and I could have real conversations about the world with. He pretty much changed my outlook on life, and I would say the trajectory too. And he was my best friend.

The next part gets sad, though. I met him the first day of 8th grade. Fast forward to summer break, we’re about to go into high school, and I went on a vacation with my family. My mom gets a call a day before we go back, she is visibly distressed but says it’s nothing. When I get home, three of my friends and my grandma are waiting for us. My grandma breaks the news: my best friend died. He had a heart defect - his heart gave out. I knew him for a year, and I still think about him all the time. It’s surreal sometimes. I have like two photos of him. I don’t talk to anyone who knew him anymore. It was so long ago and I know I’ve forgotten so much about him, it’s hard to think about sometimes. But none of that takes away the changes he made in my life. Also, ironically, he brought me to Christianity, but I could never forgive god for taking him away.

Yes. The first woman that approached me in a club. I was a fat boy most of my life, lost a bunch of weight during university, but was still very very insecure due to trauma and some residual skin/fat.

She simply came up to me and said “Hi, I find you incredibly attractive.” - very simple statement, but this was the first time I had seriously considered the possibility that a woman would be attracted to me.

Yeah, but it took me years to realize it. I used to be a part of a FFXIV LGBT+ focused Facebook group, and there was one woman there who was the start of breaking down some brick walls in myself. Just listening to her talk about her journey through transitioning opened my eyes to some negative feelings I was carrying, and later on in my life, where those feelings really stemmed from.

I wish I had said “no” when she asked me if I was so sure about myself. I feel like I missed a wide open door I should’ve jumped through, instead of stumbling through it already half-broken 10 years down the line.

This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever written, it’s an impossibly small chance, but if you’re out there, I miss the fuck outta you, you pole-smoking thundercunt. I wish I realized what a friend I had before I chose to walk away.

Many. Technically most I still “know” through the advent of facebook, but I’m basing things off the period I interacted with them directly.

• Numerous people I met in passing while I lived on campus during my failed attempt at college had long term effects on me. Watching other nerd’s socialization attempts fall flat helped me to learn when to keep my mouth shut when people didn’t get a reference. Being open to conversation with anyone about anything they were passionate about opened my eyes and mind to a whole ton of interests that I would have never thought about. On top of that, socializing with others is a skill that is improved with experience like any other skill. Being a freshman just figuring shit out in a nerdy degree gave plenty of excuse for me to be shit at socializing while I kept improving over time.

• An upperclassman in an elective course I took freshman year chuckling at the same jokes the professor was making that the rest of the class didn’t get, which evolved into whispered chitchat, then study sessions helped open my eyes that there were other people with similar senses of humor to me persuing wildly different paths.

• A girl who had a very obvious unrequited crush on my roommate helped pull me out of my shell, really demonstrated how wonderful it is to feel comfortable with who you are as a person, and her attitude of getting as much enjoyment out of any given situation (even the bad ones where her best friend started dating the guy she’d been pining after) really stuck with me. Also helped break me of the illusion that unrequited feelings are in any way worth it.

• Many classmates and others that just suddenly had confidence in my knowledge and abilities after short talks with them helped build my confidence in my own knowledge, and helped ephasize that things that I saw as throwawy (because it came easy to me) shouldn’t be disregarded.

• Some old high school classmates that I’ve ran into at college and now later in adulthood helped show me that despite my internal turmoil, I’ve been able to present well. It really hammered home to me that I’m my own worst critic, and that I’m the only one keeping such close tabs on my own blunders.

• Just honestly and openly asking people how they were and truly being interested in listening to them opened my eyes to so many things, especially the sheer depth of human experience there is that each and every single person goes through.

The biggest impact for the limited time though has to be an old lesbian couple that let me stay in their spare room for a few months over a decade ago.

At that time I had dropped out of university. I was unemployed. I was in a deep depression, and my issues with my relationship with my parents were boiling over. I needed an out.

My long term gf had went long distance a year or two before, and said she had these friends that could let me crash with them while I got my shit sorted.

At the risk of doxxing myself with too much info, this couple was forced into early retirement due to a car accident leaving both of them unable to stand for extended periods, so they were partially wheelchair bound. One was a former autism spectrum diagnostician/social worker, the other was a practical effects tech for theater, movies, and other things.

One of the biggest lessons I learned from them was to work within your own limitations. They regularly did physical therapy to improve their mobility, but they also designed and built their own tools so they could do what they needed to do around the house.

Rather than hurt themselves trying to stand for too long cooking, they would find ways to do more sitting down. That sort of thing.

It seems simple and obvious in retrospect, but I was raised by two fairly dysfunctional parents in denial of their own adult ADHD. I was used to watching them throw their bodies at the wall over and over again until it fell over when they could have just used a ladder to climb over. I could never count how many conversations I had with them that were the ADHD equivalent of them telling a depressed person to just be happier. Unfortunately, my parents often applied the same line of thinking to themselves, forcing themselves to fail at doing things the “normal” way that didn’t work for them instead of adapating to their own shortcomings.

So meeting these women living full happy lives in cooperation with their own limitations and flaws was amazing to me.

Success wasn’t just dogged application of will on the same path forward as everyone else, it was also choosing the best path for you.

It’s something that has informed my entire life since and how I interact with the world.

Met my best friend last December. A few months before I met her I had nearly died due to alcohol abuse where I was hospitalized for week, after which I chose to act on the fact I was transgendered. I started GAHT a week or two after meeting her. We became really close and about a month and a half ago I came out to her and she’s literally changed my life with her support, helping me to come out to others and accept my true self. I still have alcohol abuse problems but she doesn’t drink and I also don’t drink when I spend time with her because I don’t feel the need to. She lives in a different city so we usually spend entire weekends together or longer when we get together where I don’t drink at all which is unheard of for me for a very very long time. I still struggle with a lot of things but I can confidently say I wouldn’t be here without her. I’m a lurker and rarely post anything but she’s important enough to me I wanted to tell you all about her :) Thank you for that opportunity!

Yea, Tom Porter. I worked at the community for a few springs/summers and participated in setting up for the Strawberry festival. My father was in turmoil after his mother died and it was revealed she was a foundling and his grandparents weren’t actually his grandparents. There is some evidence she may have been mowhawk though my DNA test didn’t show any trace… either way I got a crash course on American Indian culture and while I don’t claim to be a tribal member I support the community when I can, especially in terms of cultural outreach and preservation.

I was with a friend at a pub that had karaoke night. He’s the extroverted kind and got us into a group of girls. I sat there for a bit and sang quietly with the music, never thought much of my voice or myself for that matter. The girl next to me listened and told me „Holy shit you sing great!“. She got me to go on stage and it was so much fun! People loved it. We talked a while afterwards. She was clearly into me. It didn’t work out because she still had a boyfriend but damn did it lift my self esteem! And I got singing lessons for a year.

There was this bloke who used to sit at the train station close to the uni I was attending at the time, he’d drink cans of alcohol and do a little trainspotting. We talked a couple of times and he gave me some advice that helped me get out of my shell and talk to people a lot more. I must’ve only chatted with him, like, once or twice but I think it made all the difference in pushing me into making friends in what would otherwise’ve been a very lonely and isolated part of my life.

yup, my professor. she teached me for only one semester but her pesonality has made a home in my brain. she has also teached me some “lessons” which I won’t forget for rest of my life :(